Pick Up Sticks
by a tattered rose
Summary: "And all he had to go home to was an empty apartment or a girl who would listen while the sparkle in her eye twinkled for dreams of the stardom he could give her. He was tired." Spoiler and spec for finale


_A/N: Smash has been depressing lately. This fic is for writegirl1-2 (I veered but you keep me sane), gepetto8 (by any name, after any length of time), and idbeinthefollies (oh gosh, the feels whenever you post! Brilliance and insight I pilfered without shame. ...Pilfered more than I thought I did even.) Thank you all, so much, I needed to be able to write this more than anyone could possibly know._

_For the purposes of this story, I'm ignoring Ivy's pregnancy._

* * *

He was tired. He had to admit it. Probably getting old. Not a detriment for a director, not so much as an actor, though stage was forgiving, or god forbid if he'd pursued dance, a dancer's lifespan was doomed from the outset.

He'd always made it a point of pride to not give a damn what anyone thought of him; if the work was good, and his was, a healthy ego and thick skin was exactly what let him be great. Shit rolled uphill, and the daily buck stopped with him.

But a theatre full of the best and the brightest, most influential booing him when he was literally holding vindication, knowing he was only there because he was he was a good enough option and because of a show that belonged to a dead, promising kid – that was a little much even for him.

And all he had to go home to was an empty apartment or a girl who would listen while the sparkle in her eye twinkled for dreams of the stardom he could give her.

He was tired.

Though it wasn't the Tonys, it had begun long before. A restlessness that threw him off Bombshell and sent him back to a beginning which only left him feeling old. Not true. There had been moments.

He could pick his next project. Even with the dirt. Broadway. Or a movie. Hollywood loved a scandal. TV was there too. He had a stack of scripts he hadn't glanced at, another stack he'd forced himself through, waiting for anything to strike a spark.

He was tired.

It was Tom. Eileen. Jimmy. Kyle. People and situations making decisions for him and working his way around and finding it not the imposition he'd thought it should be.

It was Ivy.

Too many nights where he'd gotten used to pushing off decisions onto her, let her talk and listened and went from there. Too many times he found himself agreeing with her, even when her solution wasn't his gut reaction. And usually, the decision was so right he could pretend it had been his choice all along.

It took half the stack before he realized, okay most of them were bad, but a few he might have taken, except every female role had Ivy's face attached and none of the parts were right for _her_. Dead Hooker wasn't good enough, though she wouldn't snub the paycheck or credit, not for a few days work.

Maybe worth it for a few weeks of his time if she'd be there beside him, but he wasn't worth her time. Not for any paycheck.

His fingers were finding the smooth edges of his phone more often than he liked. She might have picked up, she might not, and thoughts like that were left behind in crumpled pages. She'd cared enough to talk to him anyway, but with Daisy haunting his steps he hadn't dared more than a glance. He didn't trust himself to get to "hello" before it would all spill out and with Karen he expected the disgust but with Ivy it would have been disappointment and that would have been infinitely worse. Kind, true words, and then a complete loss of her that had happened anyway, in the silent snubbing.

Of course she'd found out, with everyone else. At least he hadn't had to see her face.

He hadn't dared follow anyone home since Daisy, that last time. His body ached for something besides cold sheets but all he could imagine anyway was her smell and small, yielding frame under him, caressing patterns unique to her hands.

She'd ruined him.

Even _he_ couldn't ruin her.

She was still with Bombshell, of course, but her days were filled with workshops and her evenings off with concerts and he couldn't best that.

Until he could.

A Can-Can revival was a little too close to her current role but it was perfect for her, a sure hit, something to sink her teeth into and a chance to put her mark on an already-famous role a challenge to establish her place in history.

Fingertips found phone again and he let them. Not Ivy, her agent. A little convincing and the other man agreed to let Ivy make the decision, take a meeting without Derek's name attached. It was a good enough offer, a good enough part. Public space. Of course. She could always walk away. She didn't need him. Or the job. But this was was the only way he could ask. Rejection in her eyes, rather than by proxy.

* * *

He hid at the bar, one eye past laughing patrons until she was there, watched her confident stride in absurd heels and inquiry in her eye as the maitre d' led her off to the table he'd reserved. Finger-swipe at the bartender – his tab would follow him. Still he sat, until she'd had time to order a drink, settle into her seat and _still_ he was absurdly stroking a half-empty drink, avoiding another yet knowing he needed the prop, revealing as it would be as he gauged a casual gait as if this wasn't the first time he'd spoken to her in months.

"Just do it," as the ads went.

She was typing on her phone, didn't look up until he slid into the booth across from her, setting his drink a fraction too close to her untouched wine glass.

"Derek." Her tone was surprised but she made no move to leave, and as it turned out he'd never expected her to. It wasn't Ivy.

"Ivy." It was his move, his meeting, but he didn't know what to say.

"My agent said this was about a Can-Can revival."

"It's yours. If you want it." Blunt but true. The producer had okayed it. Instantly. Ivy was hot enough, she was a catch.

She nodded slowly, examining him and he had to stop himself from touching his glass, too nervous and too close to reaching out.

"What's this about, Derek?" She finally spoke, and it was too friendly and he wanted to tell her everything.

"I miss you," and missed her reaction behind closed lids.

"You could have just called me."

"Would you have answered?"

Hers was a sigh.

* * *

_Nothing but mundane background noise of a busy restaurant, her fingers cool gliding over his knuckles, his palm until he caught at them, now still but not impersonal, veneer of business tossed aside with a touch across the table._

_He didn't have a script with him but she would. They could start at the top, anywhere she liked, order everything and eat nothing, pages wedged under glasses and plates curling from moisture and heat._

* * *

She was watching him, when he finally looked up.

She knew, he could see it. She knew him. She wasn't the first who'd said it, just the first who had more than meant it. The first who'd been right.

He was tired and he missed her.

"I miss us-" he began, knowing she'd walk away when he screwed up. That he would screw up. "Not just- I don't want to do this without you. I can't see anyone else."

Cards on the table, everything on the table.

Still a veneer. Like too much of their relationship, he had to admit. She'd always let it, that was why they'd worked as long as they had. Until he screwed it up. Every time.

It wasn't enough for her, not anymore. More had been too much, for her. By the time he was ready to admit it.

"If I take this," she hesitated, and her hesitation was worth a speech. "It would be about the work." _Not more_ hung unspoken.

"I wouldn't ask for more."

"I know." Offhand, still considering. It would be there, they couldn't pretend there'd been nothing more, couldn't ignore they'd been more. "I still care about you," and her eyebrows were drawn in a beautiful fragile truth, gentle sadness on her lips.

And he knew he should reciprocate but he'd used up the words on someone else and now they were woefully inadequate and soiled. If he was going to screw it up anyway he might as well do it right. He inched forward.

"I still love you." He waited for her to leave.

She didn't.

"Then why?" She didn't need to continue _why did you..._

A waiter weighted down with trays passed too close and he had a sudden sensation of being onstage, the wrong side, an audition for real life on the wrong side from where he'd always positioned himself. The moment he'd known there was something special about her, embarrassingly late after an inkling in the hallway and a few seconds when she'd paced a little path in front of him before rearranging herself, herself and yet Marilyn, exposing herself to him because...

"I never thought you did." The main difference was that he was never an actor, he didn't have words to work with that weren't his own. "You never..." He'd never expected her to say it. "You never- with Karen. Rebecca-" Awkward conversations, moments that stood out for him but confusingly out of context. "You could have told them, but you didn't." She'd let them posture and she'd backed away.

She was Ivy. She knew. Always knew. "I wasn't your star. They were." Gently. It was true. In a way that had mattered. Only it hadn't. Or it hadn't, but it had.

"You could have." Whispered. He whispered. She could have. To him. Not to them. No to them. Realized too late. Ivy was so much but too many years overlooked in the ensemble and she'd been too beaten down to fight those fights. Them. He'd known but hadn't _something_. Believed. No. Yes. Believed enough to fight their assumptions for her. She was always too willing to give him up.

"So could you."

The reason they hadn't done well together. Always waiting for the other until sometimes they didn't. And then they did. Work.

She still wasn't leaving.

"I wanted you to." He couldn't blame her for not knowing. Just as he had to blame himself for not making sure she did. He didn't know he could. He'd known he should.

"You were never that guy Derek." The tone she had, gentle last truth. "I was just the girl from the ensemble and they'd always win. I figured that out."

"No." And now he was so far forward the edge of the table was digging into his ribs. "They never had what you do." Him. Not just him. A spark of talent beyond a spark, beyond potential deeper than stardom. She was the full package: the passion, the training, theatre in her blood so part of her fibre a theatre full of the best and brightest and most influential applauded her not just because of her star turn as Marilyn but because they all – most of them – truly loved her, had worked with her, had waited for years for her to be in the right place at the right time to rise out of the ensemble and take her place in the spotlight.

It was her turn to whisper. "You want me now?"

An impulse and he grabbed her hand from where it gripped the table, squeezing her fingers together too hard and wanting to squeeze tighter. "I've always wanted you. You deserved Marilyn, you weren't mine and I maybe shouldn't have given it to you but you should have had it. Just not with me." Too confused but he was willing her to understand anyway. He'd seen it on Julia's face, a reflection of his own revelation, the internal fight where he was admitting Karen as his director's choice but choosing Ivy because he couldn't make her less than she was.

There were tears ghosting her eyes and he'd put them there but she let him see them. "You were horrible."

Very much so. "I know."

Her chest jerked and fell, private fight but so directed, so aware. Something caught up, fighting to get out. "I want Pistache."

Fighting but not quite making it, he was watching, evaluating the struggle, unscripted lines but he was a director and he'd watched her sort out truth before. "She's yours."

Irregular, hard breaths. Tongue scraping against her teeth and teeth roughing her lip. "I still love you too." Despite herself. He could see that. If she'd move closer he could pull her a fraction and kiss her for a movie seal but she was pulling back and all he had was a grip on fingers threatening to slip away.

"Don't walk away from me again." Desperate. But this was Ivy. He didn't care. She had as much of him as she would accept. Whatever she'd take. "Give me one more chance to- get it right." The veneer was gone. Their waiter passed by, a pause in gait but he moved on. Discretion was a part of the service, here. "Please."

And suddenly her fingers were intertwined with his, and he wasn't the only one holding on. "I already told my agent to say yes." And she was toying with a laugh and leaning forwards and-

-And he kissed her, awkwardly and wrong and probably looking foolish to the nearby and curious, but lips slid and his tongue hit hers and he'd needed her for so long and as far as she'd let him he needed her more. Not here, as their foreheads hit, nothing but her breath registering. He wanted her body against his, the privacy of anywhere, she was home enough wherever she was, sharp curve from her breasts into her waist, out over her hips. Lips under his as she held on, hands pulled him closer wherever they landed but that splay over his ear was hers, a place he belonged in a way he'd never belonged anywhere but in her arms, over her, under her, weight and touch more important than rhythm that let him release, holding her as close as he could even in the moment looking forward to the after when inflamed need became soothing touches, tumbles into each other over and over until they fell into sleep and she was still there when he woke.

Her head was gone but then her lips hit his again, softly, sweetly, hand still in his even though a table was still between them. Open eyes focusing refocusing, intimacy only increasing with distance.

"I have ideas," she warned, but he knew she would. Have ideas.

"Tell me."

And any other woman would invite him home but this was Ivy and she let him go instead, pulled out a copy of the script from her bag, already marked up and beautiful as herself.

An hour later her script wasn't between them. It was in front of them, pages wedged under glasses and picked-at plates, her hip pressing against his when she leaned to point, their waiter stopping by periodically but never interfering- it was part of the service, here. Paper wilted and curled and ink bled, a little, but they knew every line, every note. Shoulders bumping, arms lacing, eyes meeting and it was professional but it was personal, it was _them_ and they weren't exactly okay but he knew her too and he knew when they gave up for the night or were kicked out they'd leave together and-

-And she let him walk her down the block, no taxi, they kept walking all the way back to her apartment, it wasn't too far, and she never quite let go. Up the stairs, through her door, into her bed. Night. Morning. She had a class and a matinee but promised him the hour between shows and he never left, she even gave him his old key but he sprawled on the bed and then on her sofa, working ideas he meant to show her until she was wrapped around him and he forgot to breath and she had to ask what he'd been doing all day.

She'd put in notice, in a few weeks she'd be all his.

In the meanwhile he was all hers.

He'd screw it up. But not like before. She'd forgive him, when he asked. Eventually. An eventually spent feet apart, not miles.

He got tired but didn't feel tired. He had notes and queries and she had answers and most of them felt right. He'd never wanted to collaborate until Ivy and now his work was hers and her work was his and when they won their next Tonys there was nothing but applause. A match made in heaven. A fairy tale story. Fosse and Verdon reincarnated, according to an article. But better. Their own conclusion.

He didn't cheat. She didn't leave him. They'd gotten it all out of the way. They'd gotten past it.

Mornings and nights in the same bed and feeling the loss when they weren't. Every day, without fail: he loved her, she loved him.

She knew him.

He knew her.

They worked.

* * *

_A/N: Written listening to Sugarcult, mostly Pretty Girl (The Way) but on through I Changed My Name on the album, where it'd go silent and I'd poke it back up._


End file.
